The present invention relates generally to a voltage divider for an integrated circuit, and, more particularly, to a structure and method for implementing an oxide leakage based voltage divider for integrated circuit devices.
Voltage dividers are often used in integrated circuits to supply a voltage different from that of an available power source. Typically, voltage dividers in integrated circuits are designed using resistors. The most commonly utilized type of resistor in voltage dividers formed on a semiconductor substrate is a P+ poly resistor formed from polysilicon.
The use of resistors in integrated circuit voltage dividers has known drawbacks. For instance, it is often difficult to form resistors having a high resistance when using polysilicon. This is primarily due to the large surface area required in forming polysilicon resistors. As a result, typical resistance values of long, narrow polysilicon resistors are in the range of about 8-10 KΩ. In addition, when using polysilicon, an additional mask and masking steps are used to block the silicide layer that is formed and annealed over the polysilicon (and other layers) for lowering the sheet resistance thereof. Further, polysilicon resistors often have high tolerance for resistance based on geometry and random geometric variations, thus the divide point will wary.
In addition to discrete resistive elements, the use of transistors to divide voltage has also been implemented. However, as with the case for discrete resistor voltage divider networks, a transistor based voltage divider network typically requires the use of at least two or more transistors. Not only is there an added area penalty associated with multiple devices, the operating voltage of a multiple transistor divider needs to be sufficiently high so as to invert at least two transistors. Moreover, where such transistor stacks are connected in a diode configuration to create voltage drop and references, there are related accuracy problems. More specifically, the drop across each source/drain connection is related to the threshold voltage (Vt) of the device, which in turn is affected by physical dimensions, process bias, temperature and back bias on the FET. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved voltage divider source that provides improved high resistance, low current, and temperature independent voltage dividers and reference circuits.